Author:David Adams Richards
'A poetic account of the dialogue Richards has conducted with the river during half a century of listening to the whisper and gurgle of its myriad voices - a lyrical evocation of the sights, sounds and scents of a great Canadian waterway' - The Sunday HeraldLines on the Water is the story of a town, its river and the community of people who fish in it. David Adams Richards is a prize-winning author but when he's not writing, he's mostly fishing and when he's fishing it's always along the banks of the Miramichi river. This great river and the poachers, guides, visiting city suits and friends who share it with him have woven themselves into the fabric of his life and in Lines on the Water he pays tribute to them all. Spinning fishy tale after glorious fishy tale we join him and his companions on the endless search for the next great fishing pool and along the way remember why we love to read, and why we have to fish.
Like Hardy before him, Richards seems determined not only to dignify the inhabitants of his native rural community, but to give them a universal significance as well
—— The TimesGraham Ratcliffe has experienced triumph but also tragedy . . . and for the very first time tells of his remarkable journey
—— Daily ExpressA welcome addition to the history of mountaineering . . . an absorbing read
—— Boardman Tasker PrizeI was completely engrossed . . . this is pretty serious stuff . . . the writing is forthright and precise and the book gallops along at a riveting pace . . it's a must read
—— The Climber, New Zealand Alpine ClubReads like a detective thriller . . . a book that pulls no punches and tells it how it was
—— SA Mountain SportDiscovers important omissions, bordering on deception, in a number of authoritative accounts such as Krakauer's Into Thin Air and Breashears' High Exposure . . . provides greater understanding of the key factors behind the decisions made that led to the tragic deaths
—— Wild MagazineA blow-by-blow account that puts the reader at the heart of the drama (****)
—— News of the WorldThrows a whole new light on the disaster
—— Weekly NewsAmong the Thugs is, by some distance, the best book ever written about football violence. Intelligent, succinct, and always in the thick of it, it reads as a blood-fuelled ode to English football, and as a primer for what will be when Russia hosts the World Cup. It grabs the readers attention like a headbutt to the cakehole.
—— Tony ParsonsSizzling writing to rival the best of white-heat gonzo journalism
—— New StatesmanAn extraordinary and powerful cautionary cry.
—— KirkusBrilliant. . . one of the most unnerving books you will ever read
—— NewsweekBuford creates with the majesty of a Tom Wolfe the ultimate price paid by so many for this footballing fever - the Hillsborough disaster, recalled with electrifying eloquence and power
—— Time OutA grotesque, horrifying, repellent and gorgeous book; A Clockwork Orange come to life.
—— John Gregory DunneA very readable, often funny, book.
—— The EconomistHis prose is tough and vivid
—— IDBuford pushes the possibilities of participatory journalism to a disturbing degree . . . Among the Thugs does severe damage to the conventional wisdom that England and Europe are bastions of civilization.
—— New York TimesBuford's book is important in that it offers a far more compelling explanation for the football violence than any offered by the pundits of Left and Right . . . Had Buford's account been written by a tabloid reporter or an academic sociologist it might be more easily dismissed. That is comes from a highly intelligent observer, and a neutral outsider with no axe to grind, makes his book all the more powerful and yet troubling.
—— Michael Crick , IndependentBuford’s accounts of the thugs he moved with are by turns amazing, repugnant, stunning, horrid and exhilarating.
—— HowlerThe defining book on England’s hooliganism
—— Simon Parkin , Guardian